by Mike Ashley
Morgaine shook her head and said, “No, it was one of the Old People of the hills – they are as real as you or I. It is better not to speak of them, Nimuë, or take any notice. They are very shy, and afraid of men who live in villages and farms.”
“Where do they live, then?”
“In the hills and forests,” Morgaine said. “They cannot bear to see the earth, who is their mother, raped by the plow and forced to bear, and they do not live in villages.”
“If they do not plow and reap, Aunt, what do they eat?”
“Only such things as the earth gives them of her free will,” said Morgaine. “Root, berry and herb, fruit and seeds – meat they taste only at the great festivals. As I told you, it is better not to speak of them, but you may leave them some bread at the edge of the clearing, there is plenty for us all.” She broke off a piece of a loaf and let Nimuë take it to the edge of the woods. Elaine had, indeed, given them enough food for ten days’ ride, instead of the brief journey to Avalon.
She ate little herself, but she let the child have all she wanted, and spread honey herself on Nimuë’s bread; time enough to train her, and after all, she was still growing very fast.
“You are eating no meat, Aunt,” said Nimuë. “Is it a fast day?”
Morgaine suddenly remembered how she had questioned Viviane. “No, I do not often eat it.”
“Don’t you like it? I do.”
“Well, eat it then, if you wish. The priestesses do not have meat very often, but it is not forbidden, certainly not to a child your age.”
“Are they like the nuns? Do they fast all the time? Father Griffin says—” She stopped, remembering she had been told not to quote what he said, and Morgaine was pleased; the child learned quickly.
She said, “I meant you are not to take what he says as a guide for your own conduct. But you may tell me what he says, and one day you will learn to separate for yourself what is right in what he says, and what is folly or worse.”
“He says that men and women must fast for their sins. Is that why?”
Morgaine shook her head. “The people of Avalon fast, sometimes, to teach their bodies to do what they are told without making demands it is inconvenient to satisfy – there are times when one must do without food, or water, or sleep, and the body must be the servant of the mind, not the master. The mind cannot be set on holy things, or wisdom, or stilled for the long meditation which opens the mind to other realms, when the body cries out ‘Feed me!’ or ‘I thirst!’ So we teach ourselves to still its clamoring. Do you understand?”
“N-not really,” said the child doubtfully.
“You will understand when you are older, then. For now, eat your bread, and make ready to ride again.”
Nimuë finished her bread and honey and wiped her hands tidily on a clump of grass. “I never understood Father Griffin either, but he was angry when I did not. I was punished when I asked him why we must fast and pray for our sins when Christ had already forgiven them, and he said I had been taught heathendom and made Mother send me to my room. What is heathendom, Aunt?”
“It is anything a priest does not like,” said Morgaine. “Father Griffin is a fool. Even the best of the Christian priests do not trouble little ones like you, who can do no sin, with much talk about it. Time enough to talk about sin, Nimuë, when you are capable of doing it, of making choices between good and evil.”
Nimuë got on her pony obediently, but after a time she said, “Aunt Morgaine – I am not such a good girl, though. I sin all the time. I am always doing wicked things. I am not at all surprised that Mother wanted to send me away. That is why she is sending me to a wicked place, because I am a wicked girl.”
Morgaine felt her throat close with something like agony. She had been about to mount her own horse, but she hurried to Nimuë’s pony and caught the girl in a great hug, holding her tight and kissing her again and again. She said, breathlessly, “Never say that again, Nimuë! Never! It is not true, I vow to you it is not! Your mother did not want to send you away at all, and if she had thought Avalon a wicked place she would not have sent you, no matter what I threatened!”
Nimuë said in a small voice, “Why am I being sent away, then?”
Morgaine still held her tight with all the strength of her arms. “Because you were pledged to Avalon before you were born, my child. Because your grandmother was a priestess, and because I have no daughter for the Goddess, and you are being sent to Avalon that you may learn wisdom and serve the Goddess.” She noted that her tears were falling, unheeded, on Nimuë’s fair hair. “Who let you believe it was punishment?”
“One of the women – while she packed my shift—” Nimuë faltered. “I heard her say Mother should not have sent me to that wicked place – and Father Griffin has told me often that I am a wicked girl—”
Morgaine sank to the ground, holding Nimuë in her lap, rocking her back and forth. “No, no,” she said gently, “no, darling, no. You are a good girl. If you are naughty or lazy or disobedient, that is not sin, it is only that you are not old enough to know any better, and when you are taught to do what is right, then you will do so.”
And then, because she thought this conversation had gone far for a child so young, she said, “Look at that butterfly! I have not seen one that color before! Come, Nimuë, let me lift you on your pony now,” she said, and listened attentively as the little girl chattered on about butterflies.
Alone she could have ridden to Avalon in a single day, but the short legs of Nimuë’s little pony could not make that distance, so they slept that night in a clearing. Nimuë had never slept out of doors before, and the darkness frightened her when they put out the fire, so Morgaine let the child creep into the circle of her arms and lay pointing out one star after another to her.
The little girl was tired with riding and soon slept, but Morgaine lay awake, Nimuë’s head heavy on her arm, feeling fear stealing upon her. She had been so long away from Avalon. Step by slow step, she had retraced all her training, or what she could remember; but would she forget some vital thing? Would they even want her back?
I bring them Viviane’s granddaughter, she thought. But if they let me return only for her sake it will be more bitter than death. Has the Goddess cast me out forever?
* * *
No, for when she summoned the barge to take them to Avalon, it came at her call. Nimuë was wide-eyed and confused during the brief journey to the island and her presentation to the priestesses.
“Well, Nimuë,” the priestess Niniane asked, “have you come to be a priestess here?”
Nimuë looked around at the sunset landscape. “That is what my aunt Morgaine told me. I would like to learn to read and write and play the harp, and know about the stars and all kinds of things as she does. Are you really evil sorceresses here? I thought a sorceress would be old and ugly, and you are very pretty.” She bit her lip. “I am being rude again.”
Niniane laughed. “Always speak out the truth, child. Yes, I am a sorceress. I do not think I am ugly, but you must decide for yourself whether I am good or evil. I try to do the will of the Goddess, and that is all anyone can do.”
“I will try to do that,” Nimuë said, “if you will tell me how.”
THE HORSE WHO WOULD BE KING
JENNIFER ROBERSON
Perhaps it is timely to inject some humour into the proceedings. It was inevitable that somewhere in this anthology there needed to be a story about the sword in the stone. I didn’t want to reprint the episode as it is treated in the standard tales, and because of the later more mystical treatment of the sword Excalibur, I wanted something that looked at the incident of the sword in the stone in a more refreshing light. I was thus delighted to encounter Jennifer Roberson’s “Never Look at a Gift Sword in the Horse’s Mouth” published in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine. I’ve reprinted the story here under its subtitle, “The Horse Who Would Be King”. Roberson has brought the T. H. White treatment to Merlin and Arthur in a delightful way.
Jennifer Roberson (b. 1953) is probably best known for her eight-book sequence about the Cheysuli, which began with Shape-changers (1984) and ran through to A Tapestry of Lions (1992). She has also turned her attention to the Matter of Britain, though not so much the Arthurian world as that of Robin Hood, with Lady of the Forest (1992).
My master had a problem. He knew it. I knew it. But nobody else knew it. And we needed to keep it that way.
“You’re a magician,” I told him comfortingly. “Use some smoke and mirrors, a little sleight of hand, a pinch of razzle-dazzle – no one will even notice.”
The morning, for Britain, was bright: the half-hearted sun was a tarnished, brass-colored splotch in the haze of reluctant day. Birds chirped. Bees buzzed. Mice rustled. Down the hill, a camp dog barked.
My master slumped disconsolately against the broken tree stump in the hollow of the hill, rump planted precariously near an anthill. The ants, as yet, were oblivious; unfortunately, so was he.
“Magician,” he muttered disgustedly. “I’m bloody Merlin, you fool!” I considered polite ways of pointing out the anthill and the potential consequences of taking up residence, however temporary, in its immediate environs, but decided the topic at hand was more immediate. My master was touchily proud of his position as the most exalted, learned, and powerful magician Britain had ever known, and protected that reputation with a fervor verging on obsession . . . any challenges to his authority, intended or no, required delicate attention.
“I know that,” I reminded him, implying mild reproof; a long and peculiar acquaintanceship allowed me great latitude in familiarity. “You’ve taken great pains for some years now to establish exactly who you are, with commensurate reputation. No one in all of Britain doesn’t know who you are.”
He cast me a baleful glance from dark, brooding eyes overshadowed with thick untidy dark hair only infrequently combed or cut. “And there’s the rub,” he complained. “I’m a victim of my own success. I’m left no room for failure.”
I snorted. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t be successful this time.”
“No reason!” The baleful glare reasserted itself as affronted outrage. “I’m supposed to supply Britain with the greatest hero-king she’s ever known, and you say, ever so blithely—” with the soft-spoken, icy precision that cut the legs out from lesser souls, “—there’s no reason I shouldn’t be successful.”
I ignored the ice and derision. “No reason at all. Trust me.”
Merlin glared, surrendering verbal acrobatics; none of them worked, with me. “Trust you.”
“Yes.”
With elegant precision, my master said distinctly: “You are a horse.”
A moot point, and unworthy of discussion. I tossed my head, flopping my dark gray forelock eloquently between upstanding ears. “I’m confident you’ll find someone for the job.”
Merlin ground his teeth, spitting out his commentary with a repressed passion that underscored his frustration. “It can’t be just anyone, don’t you see? It must be someone very special. Someone unique in all respects. Someone perfectly suited to unite all the warring tribes so Britain can fend off foreign invaders.”
I looked down my nose, a posture better suited to me than to him, as my nose was considerably longer. “You just need someone who can kiss a lot of ass,” I told him, “although why anyone would want an ass when there’s a perfectly presentable horse available, I don’t know.”
“Don’t be so arrogant,” Merlin sniffed. “After all, I made you.”
“And I’ll be the making of you.” I gazed back at the encampment some distance away. Smoke clogged the trees, drifting hither and yon. I heard the sounds of laughter, raillery, arguments, mock fighting, weapons practice. The air stank of smoke, burned meat, and unwashed human bodies. “We haven’t failed yet. We’ll come up with a plan.”
Merlin heaved a sigh, picking idly at a snag in his second-best enchanter’s robe. “Not just any plan. It has to be very delicate. Very selective, so there’s no question as to the outcome. I can’t just point at a fellow and say: ‘That’s the man there, don’t you know, rightwise born king of all England.’”
I cocked a hoof, standing hipshot. “Why not?”
“It smacks of dictatorship. They won’t like it, from me. These people like signs, and portents, and omens . . . they’re a superstitious lot, bound up by ritualistic gobbledygook – never mind such things are as easy to arrange as buying a girl for the night.” He glowered at me. “Not that I can buy one, mind you . . . whose idea was it that Merlin had to be chaste?”
“You had to be something,” I reminded him. “You needed a gimmick. Nobody cares if you sing, or tell stories, or swill wine with the best of them – what sets a man apart in these immoral times is his chastity.”
He flapped a hand at a bee. “You might have picked something easier on me. Or at least let me geld you, so we suffer equally.”
I pointedly ignored the suggestion. “As to signs and portents and ritualistic gobbledygook, you’ve been the one arranging those very things for years, now.”
He snapped a loose thread free of his robe, inspecting it morosely. If he kept at it, part of the robe would unravel and hence become third-best. “I have to make them think they’ve something to do with it . . . or else make it so obvious there’s only one conclusion.”
“Tests are good for that. They weed out the inappropriate.”
The line of his mouth crimped. “I hate to make the kingship of all Britain contingent upon a test.”
“Why? Makes as much sense as drawing names out of a pot.”
I pawed at damp turf, digging an idle hole. We all have our bad habits. “After all, it’s you who’ll be running the realm.”
Merlin thought about it. “I need the right sort of man. A very particular type of man. Stupid enough to be malleable, but wise enough to know his limits. Young enough to be suitably idealistic, big enough to be impressive.”
I plucked a succulent clot of turf from the damp ground, shook it free of mud, ground it to bits between my teeth.
“There’s always Artie.”
Truly taken aback, Merlin gazed at me in horror. “You can’t be serious!”
“He’s pretty good at carrying your baggage around, and he always feeds me on time.”
“Artie’s thick in the head.”
“All the better for you.” I smiled, displaying teeth. “He’s young enough, big enough, certainly stupid enough – and he listens to you.”
“Because he knows if he doesn’t I’ll turn him into a frog.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Artie’s an innocent. You’d never hurt him like that.”
Merlin just scowled; he hates it whenever I remind him he’s not the tyrant he pretends to be.
I switched my tail. “It’s a good idea, and you know it. He’s been quiet since we arrived, so no one knows much about him. He looks enough like Uther to qualify as his bastard; and anyway, Uther’s dead. He won’t care.”
Merlin grunted. “Who’s his mother, then?”
I ruminated a moment. “What about that women living out on the edge of nowhere in Cornwall? At Tintagel. She’s supposed to be a trifle touched in the head, too.”
“Gorlois’s widow?” Dark brows lanced down. “That’s Ygraine. No one’s seen her for years. She lives out there with a couple of servants and a castle full of cats.”
“That’s what I mean. She won’t put up much of a fuss. And if she does, just keep sending her merchants with wagons full of wares. Shopping will keep her mind off things.”
“Uther’s bastard, got on Ygraine.”
Merlin chewed a lip. “It could work.”
“Of course it could.”
“I’ll have to concoct some bizarre tale full of supposed magic and superstitious nonsense to account for the bedding.”
“Uther bedded half the woman in Britain.”
“But he’s allergic to cats. He’d never have bedded Ygraine, or he’d have sneezed f
or a month.”
I waggled dark-tipped ears. “You’ll think of something. You’ve done it before.” With my help, of course, but we don’t always mention that.
“And something to prove Artie’s worthy.” Merlin chewed a ragged fingernail. Very bad habit. “That will be the hard part.”
I disagreed. “Just figure out a straightforward test with all the right sort of bells and whistles, then contrive the thing so Artie passes when no one else can.”
“Ants!” Merlin cried, leaping to his feet. In a frenzy of activity unbecoming to the most exalted enchanter Britain had ever known, he beat off the ants with both hands. “Begone!” he thundered.
I winced, wondering if England would keep her ants. The last time Merlin had been so irritated, we’d been in Ireland, with snakes.
Though someone else got the credit for that.
Artie came up to see me at midday. All the other horses were picketed at tents or elsewhere in the trees, but everyone had learned very quickly that the big gray horse with the sword-shaped blaze on his face was not to be bothered.
I nickered a greeting as he made his way up the hill, using horse language in case anyone else was around. Only Artie and Merlin knew I could talk, and we’d decided it was better left that way. Actually, I think it was because Merlin didn’t like sharing his notoriety; a talking horse would siphon some of the attention from him.
Artie wore that distant, slack-jawed expression that others took for stupidity, including my master. In truth, Artie wasn’t that stupid. He just daydreamed a lot.
I’d asked him once what he thought about when he turned himself sideways to the day and wandered the dreaming lands that separated waking life from sleep. He’d just hunched his big shoulders and answered “things,” in that infuriatingly unspecific way that said everything he needed to say, and nothing at all of what I wanted to hear.
But that’s Artie, God love him.
For a man as big as Artie, he knew how to walk quietly. I heard nary a crackle of underbrush and deadfall as he climbed the hill to me. I smelled the oatcake before he dug it out of his tunic, expanding nostrils to breathe heavily at him.